Flowers in Winter
by stolen-humanity
Summary: Bella, dealing with the loss of a loved one and a crumbling family life, tries to come to terms with everything that happened. A summer at the lake, surrounded by memories leads to more than she ever expected. AH, Canon couples. Read and Review?


**Disclaimer: I don't own the Twilight characters, only the story line.**

The winter had been cold and grey, mimicking the atmosphere around my family home. Evenings that I spent there were spent in near silence, the hum of the furnace and the howling of the February winds, the only sounds truly present. Once in a while someone would make an inane comment and less often someone would reply to it. My father worked more and more, his hours troubling. The odd evening that he'd make it home for supper, he and my mother sat across the table from each other, neither meeting the other's eyes forcing out conversation about the front page of the local paper, or something boring and routine that happened at my father's work. They never touched on the elephant in the room. They never even spoke of anything which could potentially lead there. No one did, and yet we all knew what it was.

I got a job at the local book store to get me out of the house. My therapist told me that keeping busy was the best thing I could do for myself and I took her seriously. She hadn't steered me wrong. School had been left at a standstill for the previous year and a half and I wasn't focused enough to get back into full time studies. Everyone seemed to understand that, or at least respect my decision.

When everything started to turn upside down my father had sold nearly everything; the house in the country, the property he held on the coast. He cashed in stocks and life savings. We moved into a small condo in the city, and downsized to one car. And all, in the end, for a few extra months. Months which caused no one anything but heart break, pain and worry. But no one resented him for it. Not at the time anyway. How could we? We all thought the next one would be it. The next clinic, the next doctor, the next breakthrough treatment. But it wasn't enough. It would never be enough. Money couldn't fix it, and I would watch that simple fact destroy my family.

By spring things at home weren't much different. The pain was manifesting itself in different ways, but it was still ever present within the walls. Unlike the winter, the spring was bright, the colours vibrant. My mother kept herself locked in her bedroom. I only saw her if she happened to venture out for food when I was home, which admittedly wasn't often. I knew she wasn't doing well, I knew about her drinking, but I was too self absorbed to spend much time worrying about it. It's not something I'm proud of, but it's nothing I could change.

My father was still working late hours. It was rare he was home while I was still awake, and some nights he never came home at all. I should have stepped up to the plate and looked after things, but I didn't know how, and I chose not to learn.

One day at therapy, Mildred, my therapist, asked me how I felt about flowers. I told her I didn't know much about growing them, but thought that they were beautiful to look at. She smiled at me and pulled a bulb from her desk drawer.

"Do you know what this is?" She asked, holding up the brown, papery ball. She fingered the tiny roots almost lovingly before reaching across the table to hand it to me. I knew it was a bulb, but I wasn't sure what kind of flower it would grow so I shook my head. "It's a species tulip," she informed me, nodding at the bulb that I was turning over and over in my hands. I peered up at her through my lashes and gave her a small smile. "Do you remember one of the first things you told me about her, was?" Mildred pressed, steering clear of _her_ name as I always did. She told me we were going to have to touch on that eventually, but she hoped it would be my choice and not her's. I had come a long way in the short months since I'd been seeing her, and she'd been a great help with me dealing with everything that was going on around me. I knew I'd need to say _her_ name in order to make much more progress, and I'd caught myself thinking it more and more in the past couple of weeks.

I looked into Mildred's calm, encouraging face and swallowed audibly. "I told you, that tulips were Elizabeth's favourite flower," I whispered, clutching my hands together. Mildred smiled her flat, therapist smile, but her eyes lit up at the break through.

"That's right, and I thought, since spring is here, maybe you'd like to do a little exercise."

I shrugged. "Will it help?"

"I think it will," she replied softly. "But you need to think it will help."

I put the bulb down and looked at her, resting my chin in my hands. I waited impatiently.

"What do you know about reincarnation, Bella?"

"It's where, after you die, you come back to earth, reborn as something else. Right?" I looked to her for approval.

She nodded. "Basically. Not always as something else, but that _is_ the general idea. I'd like to take that a step further. Perhaps you don't believe in reincarnation. I don't know what your personal beliefs are and I'm not about to preach to you. But do you believe in some sort of afterlife?"

I thought about it for a moment. It was a strange question. I wasn't sure I believed in the traditional heaven and hell belief; however that wasn't what Mildred was asking. I liked the idea that the people we loved could come back in some form, and I told her as much.

"This year's spring is exceptionally beautiful, isn't it Bella?" Mildred was prying, trying to get me to talk. It happened sometimes, I got lost in my thoughts. She didn't let it happen much anymore.

I'd noticed that spring had been exceptionally warm and sunny. Flowers were blooming much earlier and seemingly brighter, the grass was greener, and on the days when it rained, it seemed to sparkle and shine. I wondered if, in light of everything, perhaps I was learning to appreciate the beauty more. I nodded again at Mildred's question. "I don't think I take advantage of things like that like I used to," I told her.

"Do you think Elizabeth had anything to do with the beauty of this year's spring?"

I smiled at the thought. She had always loved spring. She had always loved everything though. She appreciated even the tiniest things that no one else noticed.

"Her favourite place was my grandparents' cabin on the lake. When we were kids we spent our summers there. Those were the best times. I learned so much about her then. She was carefree and beautiful and happy. There was this picture of us together on the floating dock. I was lying down looking bored, like I always did it seemed, and she was standing, hands on her hips, grinning at the camera, spacey teeth taking up most of her face. She had the greatest smile." I smiled wistfully. "I miss her," I whispered, choking back my tears.

"I know, honey," Mildred told me, breaking therapist form for just a second. "That's where the bulbs come in. I want you to think about it. That ugly, brown bulb is going to turn into a beautiful flower. A flower your sister would have loved. And who says that Elizabeth won't be helping those flowers along? It won't bring her back but it is a way to feel closer, more connected. Plant the bulbs, and next spring they'll sprout and grow and bloom into beautiful tulips. And every year there will be more and more and every time you see them, you'll think of her, and remember everything good."

I had to admit, I wasn't sure I saw the link that Mildred seemed to see, but I closed my hand around the bulb and held it tightly. Mildred handed me a small, paper bag with four more bulbs inside of it when I left her office that day, and told me to plant them according to the directions, when the ground was soft enough to dig. I thanked her, but I was absent from my body. I'd made a ton of progress in the short hour and I needed some time alone to process it. I left the building that day, the weight of the bulbs in my hands, feeling lighter than I had in months.

April gave way to May. My family ignored Easter all together. My mother rarely left her room and my father rarely came home. I flitted about, confused and sad and nostalgic. I was still holding onto the bulbs from Mildred and I knew I needed to plant them soon. I also knew I needed to get out of the city. I was getting restless and was easily distracted. My grandparents hadn't used their cabin in a few years, convinced they were getting too old. They'd been rather shaken with the loss of Elizabeth as well and no one spoke of going back there. Everyone knew the same thing. It was _her_ favourite place, and no one wanted to be buried in her memory. No one but me. So the second weekend in May I finished packing my suitcase, bid my nearly completely absent parents farewell, and jangled the keys to my newly acquired, out of date car, almost jovially.

The drive to the lake was long, and my car had no air conditioning. I hadn't thought it would be a big problem in May but I also hadn't counted on temperatures in the mid to high 70s. I had never been so relieved for a five hour trip to be over, and as I peeled my sweating legs from the overheated leather seats I winced in pain. But when I stepped out of the car, stood up straight and caught my first glimpse of the lake, all the pain and sweat was more than worth it.

The cabin was cool and dark, the key was sticky in the lock, but I was right where I needed to be. The vaulted ceilings in the front room made space for floor to ceiling windows overlooking the lake, and as I raised all of the blinds and watched the sunset over the lake, I thought about the hundreds of times I'd done the exact same thing with my sister. I gingerly took the bulbs from my bag and set them on the table in the kitchen. The next day I would plant the bulbs. I knew exactly where I would put them.


End file.
